


The Lime Tree

by ronniedae



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Angst, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hand Jobs, M/M, Minor Character Death, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 19:09:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13037550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ronniedae/pseuds/ronniedae
Summary: Otabek keeps losing himself; in skating, in biking, in music, in his mother’s death, in the stars. In Yuri.It’s been a little over eight months since Otabek’s mother died. Slowly, but surely, he has been recovering; picking himself up after the shock of the fall. He’s found pieces of his grief in everything he has done.He finds forgiveness he didn’t need to ask for in his skating routines. He finds freedom in his mixes at the club. The tears come on late night bike rides to the Russian countryside. He finds her love in novels and photos buried in the back of the closet.But it’s underneath the lime tree that Otabek finally finds peace; he finds Yuri there, too.





	The Lime Tree

**Chapter 1 - Ease**

“Beka!”

Otabek turns to meet the source of his name as he is enveloped in the arms of a golden haired Russian boy. In the same instant, he drops his bags to the ground and returns the embrace.

“Yura.” He breathes. The hug tightens.

They part, slightly. Yuri’s hands are still wrapped around his neck as Otabek slides his own in to the younger boy’s back pockets.

“I missed you.” They say in unison. Then they’re grinning, then laughing. Loudly in the airport lobby.

Yuri slings Otabek’s backpack over his shoulder and he grabs his suitcase. They walk hand in hand to the taxi rink.

The ride in to the city is filled with incessant babbling – mostly Yuri’s. Otabek can’t resist touching him the entire time; he plays with his hair and strokes his hand as he talks to him. It doesn’t take long for his hand to slip down to his waist and land between his thighs.

Yuri breathes in and glances sideways at the blissfully unaware cab driver in the front seat. He readjusts himself; sitting across the back seat with his legs up on Otabek.

They continue talking; Otabek’s fingers inch further to the growing bulge in Yuri’s jeans.

They barely make it inside the apartment with their clothes on.

\--

The passing week flicks by far quicker than either of them like. The days begin and end much the same; they’re naked, and tossing between the sheets.

They’ve been like this for a while; years even. Their little fling started sometime between Yuri’s seventeenth and Otabek’s twentieth birthdays. Isabella had dragged them to Toronto to celebrate JJ’s twenty-first.

Otabek had encouraged Yuri to come; insisting that it was okay to take a break sometimes. That he should get out of Russia and the pressure to maintain his winning streak.

June brings the hottest time for Toronto; the summer heat had easily forced them in to a pool party; grinning as tops came off and beer bottles popped open. There was something about seeing his lips puckered from the bottle and stained cherry red.

He’s always blamed the heat; and the way Yuri looked in the hot tub under the stars. And the fact that everyone else had gone to bed before them. It was bound to happen eventually.

Otabek is not a talker; so he doesn’t say any more than what needs to be said and their relationship has never felt like it needed a label. So it hasn’t had one. Instead, they’ve spent three years finding each other in hotel rooms and empty ice rinks and any place they can get naked and not caught.

It makes sense, he supposes. Yuri makes sense.

 

* * *

 

 

“I’m leaving the day after tomorrow.”

“Fuck off, Beka! You’ve hardly been here a week!” Yuri abandons his food and crosses his arms.

“I can’t stay long, Yura, you know that.”

Yuri slumps in his chair, pouting, he refuses to look at Otabek.

“Oh, come on.” Otabek tucks a strand of his golden locks behind his ears. “We’re at the same qualifiers for the GPF this year, so we’ll see each other plenty in the next month or so.” He smiles, hoping Yuri will turn toward his. He doesn’t; and instead chooses to further display his disappointment by crossing his arms and turning his head.

Otabek takes the opportunity to lean over and kiss his cheek.

No response comes.

So he tries his jaw. Then his neck. Then he’s nibbling on his ear when Yuri finally relents.

Yuri turns to him; their lips are barely touching, both desperate to complete the kiss. Neither really willing to give in.

Then Otabek smirks. “Go on then.” He goads.

Yuri pushes him out of frustration. The stubborn look on his face is enough to make Otabek laugh. Yuri smiles too; when Otabek finally leans over and their lips finally meet. It’s not long before they’re both digging their hands in their pockets and leaving enough money on the table to tip the half-eaten meal twice over.

They stumble out from the restaurant and in to the street, clutching each other’s clothes, desperate to get them off.

 _Thank God he picked a place so close by._ The thought quickly passes Otabek’s mind before it’s consumed again by the sloppy kisses making their way down his neck.

They drag each other up the apartment steps, then in to the elevator and Otabek swear they may as well fuck here and now.

They somehow manage to resist though, and then Otabek is pushing Yuri up against his apartment door while the younger boy fumbles for his keys.

“Beka.” He moans, arching his back and driving his arse in to Otabek’s groin.

The sensation is enough for him to return the moan. He reaches forward to un-do Yuri’s belt.

Then they’re stumbling forward and in to the apartment; _thank fuck he found his keys._

Otabek spins Yuri around to face him as they both remove their jackets. Hastily wrapped scarves are the next to meet the floor. Otabek absent-mindedly remember that he’s already undone Yuri’s belt; then he pulls down his skinny jeans so quick that the button pops.

Yuri is trying to kick off his winter boots when Otabek grabs his cock and bites his tongue. He is forceful, and rough. Yuri loves it.

“Bed or sofa?”

Yuri is far too distracted to answer.

“Sofa it is.” Then Otabek effortlessly picks him up and sets him down sitting on the arm on the sofa. They both manage to lose their boots before they tumble backwards. Yuri kicks Otabek’s jeans and underwear before wrapping his legs around his waist.

Their tongue fight their teeth as they and grind and –

“ _Fuck_!” Yuri cries out as Otabek teases his arsehole with unlubricated fingers. An involuntary shake takes over him as he pushes inside.

They settle in to a steady rhythm; Yuri gasps and moans and pulls against Otabek’s hair as he pounds him with his fingers and paints his neck purple.

“More.” Yuri breathes in his ear as he pulls at Otabek’s t-shirt.

Otabek grunts in to his neck, picking up the speed and adding a second finger. Yuri arches his back and cries out.

“No! _More_!”

Otabek takes his fingers out and shoves them in to Yuri’s mouth; he obediently sucks. He shakes with desperation at the sight of him; pink faced and grinding his hips upward.

He returns his fingers; Yuri moaning and desperate. He paints his neck purple as the blond pulls against his hair, demanding –

_“More!”_

So Otabek gives it to him; enters with little warning as Yuri’s back arches up off the sofa cushions.

“ _F… fuck_.” They stutter in unison, as if this is the first time this week they’ve done this.

It’s the most desperate though; Yuri hates him leaving and always tries to convince him to stay with those pretty pink lips. It nearly works every time.

But right now, those lips are biting his neck and painting his skin purple as Yuri moves his hands up to bury them in Otabek’s hair.

Their rhythm settles; quick and easy, they grind in to one another and their surroundings are eclipsed by their climax.

They spend the minutes to midnight buried in each other on the sofa. It’s only when Potya makes a disgruntled mewl in a desperate attempt to regain her stolen sleep spot that they finally drag each other to bed.

\--

Their tenderest moments always seem to happen after the fact; the moonlight gleams through the open curtains and dances along their skin.

Yuri is laying on Otabek’s chest; the older man has one arm behind his head and uses his free hand to draw circles on Yuri’s naked back. It’s a blissful simpleness. The same kind that first drew them together.

“My mother is sick.”

Yuri moves his head up from Otabek’s chest to look at him.

“What kind of sick?” He asks.

Otabek doesn’t answer, instead, a kind of sadness appears in his eyes that Yuri has never seen before. He takes a shaky breath and squeezes Yuri’s shoulder.

Yuri settles back down; burying his head in the crook of Otabek’s neck. He kisses his collarbone softly; Otabek returns the gesture by placing a soft peck on his forehead.

“I’m sorry, Beka.”

The simple sincerity is enough to make him cry.

\--

Their goodbyes always seem to go the same way. They never get any easier.

Yuri clutches on to him, refusing to let go until they’re standing outside a bustling security line and the last call for his flight is ringing in his ears.

“I just hate it, Beka. I hate that you have to go.” He’s quiet; head pressed against Otabek’s chest and mumbling in to his t-shirt.

“I know, Yura. I l– ”

The final boarding announcement comes. Yuri’s looking at him do desperately. He can’t seem to find it in himself to finish his sentence. He never can. But Yuri never asks him to.

A kiss suffices instead. Then he’s gone. They’re separated again and Yuri can’t ever seem to figure out why the ache in the stomach doesn’t go away until they’re reunited.

 

* * *

 

 

Otabek drives straight around the back of the manor; parking his bike far out of sight of the main house. It’s easier, that way, he’s learned. It avoids the disapproving looks of both his grandparents and his mother.

He dumps his helmet on the kitchen island as his Grandmother enters the room; it’s a rarity to see her in here, and he can’t stop himself before he gives her a questioning look.

“Your mother wants ice _chips_ not _cubes_.” She states with a huff while pressing a plastic cup to the machine of the freezer door.

“Ah.” He shuffles uncomfortably, never sure of how to act around her. “I’ll take them to her?” He suggests.

She dumps the cup on the counter and motions to his helmet. “Get that godforsaken thing out my sight first.”

She whips out of the room, her long chiffon skirt flowing behind her. He picks up his helmet to stash it in its usual hiding place in the back pantry and meanders his way through the house to his Mother’s sick bed.

He pauses – knuckles softly pressed up against her bedroom door, suddenly finding himself without the strength to knock. He wonders in the moment if it was too late; if he could just turn back around and get back on the next flight to St. Petersburg. Maybe then he could keep pretending that his mother wasn’t dying.

He closes his eyes and finds the strength from somewhere to knock.

“Mama?” He calls gently as the door creaks open.

She’s sat upright; a rarity in the last few months. She seems bright and alert. An old book sits on her lap as she chews the end of her bookmark; a habit that she has passed down to her son.

“Beka? I thought you’d gone to see Yuri?” She replaces the chewed bookmark in between the pages and sets the book down on her bedside table. “It’s only been a few days…”

She trails off and looks concerned. Otabek shakes the cup of ice chips.

“Brought you these.” He smiles thinly as he walks to the bed hands it to her.

He surprises her by scooting further to the side of the bed. The takes the cup with one hand and pats the place next to her.

It doesn’t take much convincing for him to kick off his boots and flop down; though he’s careful not to disturb the wide array of tubes and wires. He throws his arm over his head and shuts his eyes. He’s exhausted; Yuri had kept him up the whole night before and the flight had been last-minute economy ticket hell. Within the first hour he had found himself wishing he’d just accepted the money from his Grandparents to fly first class, but his mother hadn’t raised him that way.

“Did you fight?”

He frowns. “No.”

“Oh.” She pauses for a second. “You tell him that you’re in love with him yet?”

“Mama.” He laughs. “I’ve told you it’s not like that.”

“Hmm.” She hums, and he can hear the smile in her voice before he even looks up at her to confirm it.

“What? It’s not!” He protests.

“Whatever you say, Beka.”

An easy silence falls between them. He throws his arm back over his face and she picks her book back up and turns the page. They stay like that for a while; the machines continue to beep and Otabek is still even as the nurse comes in to draw blood from his mother.

He does not sleep, instead, he listens as his mother reads and hums in approval to the book.

“What are you reading?” He asks.

“Oh? I’m not reading.”

The odd statement causes him to look up at her again.

“It’s a photo album.” She answers his unasked question.

He scoffs. “Jane Austen’s _Emma_ is not a photo album. It’s also awful.”

“Don’t be mean just because you don’t like it!” She playfully chastises. “You don’t like any Austen anyway.”

“Overrated.” He claims.

She hums. “Your grandfather feels the same, he won’t go near one. It’s what made them such good hiding places.”

The statement gains enough attention for him to sit up in the bed.

She smiles at him. “You’re more alike than you think, you know.”

He frowns. “Photos?” He asks, hoping to change the way the conversation is heading.

She allows it. “Yes, I hid them in my Jane Austen books. Far better than a closet back.” She glances at him, a knowing smirk on his face.

He blushes; beetroot red. “Mama.”

“What?”

“I can’t believe – ”

“ – You were being weird! I had to check you weren’t getting in to some dangerous.”

He sighs.

“Didn’t expect you to DJ, though.” She scoffs.

“I like it!” He exclaims.

“I know!” Azaliya laughs now. “And from what I hear you’re pretty good at it too.”

“Thanks.” He mumbles, still half embarrassed.

“Don’t give up skating though.”

“I won’t, Mama.”

“Even after I’m dead.”

The sentence hits his gut before it hits his head.

“That’s a long way off, Mama.”

She hums again. “Wanna see these photos?”

He sits up. “Yeah, sure.”

Azaliya hides the book from his view and takes a moment to look at him. She has no idea how someone can look so young and so aged all at once. His eyes sparkle as he stares at her and suddenly he is four years old again. Then she catches the darkness beneath him and wonders if she slept a decade longer than she thought.

He looks at her now with the same expression he used to as young child; constantly inquisitive and curious about the world around him. She’s always loved it, the constant hunger for knowledge.

The book contains pieces that she’s wanted to tell him for a while. But, despite his thirst, he’s always known which subjects he could tear in to and which ones to lightly tread past.

He’s never asked about his father.

“I won’t show you these if you don’t want to see them.”

He furrows his brow. “What are they?”

“They’re pictures from when I was young; younger than you even.” She pauses for a moment. “Before you were born.”

“Oh.” He takes in her words. “You mean with…?”

“Your father? Yes.” She chews her bottom lip as he looks off to the side.

“Okay.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, Mama.”  His smile is so pure in that moment that she swears hands down that she has a four year old again.

Meanwhile, Otabek’s own head is racing and his heart pounds in tune. He swears his mother must be able to see his chest bouncing. He’s never asked about his father; he supposes a part of him hasn’t wanted to know. His Grandfather had once described him as “the source of all my misfortunes.” And Otabek had always included himself in that statement.

“I was fifteen when we met. He was nearly two years older than me and certainly far _cooler_.” She emphasises the last word as if to tease him.

“I sincerely doubt that, Mama.”

She playfully hits his arm. “No, you don’t.”

He grins in response.

“Anyway, he had this rigged up motorcycle – ”

Otabek taunts her by pretending to gasp. “ – don’t tell me you rode on the back, Mama?”

“Pregnant with you, too.”

He gasps for real that time. “Mama!”

“What?”

“I just can’t believe all what you gave me for it.”

She frowns. “My baby drives a death trap, I’m allowed to be upset about it.”

She hands him the first photo.

He smiles, through a strange feeling settles in his stomach. Otabek never thought he’d have anything in common with a man that died before he was born. Yet, the photo now in his hand bears a striking similarity to the background on his phone; his mother is beaming at the camera, sitting atop of a beat-up Kawasaki with a helmet that’s far too big for her.

He thinks about the phone buzzing in his back pocket; he doesn’t have to check it to know that it’s Yuri.

Another photo, closer up this time, reveals that he got his penchant for green eyes from his mother. He’s never thought much about the origins of his appearance. But now, he can see he has his father’s chin; everything else is Altin blood.

The next photo is his father in his uniform; a helicopter in the background which his mother, tight-lipped and tearful, tells him was shot down. It’s sends a shiver down his spine. Some kind of graveyard chills; like he’s staring at his own funeral.

They thumb through the books together; each one revealing the little evidence left of his mother’s life before him. He begins to piece together fractions of his past.

The story is practically stereotypical; a rich man’s daughter, a wayward boy. A bastard son produced as the result.

His mother surprises him by revealing that his grandparents had liked him, in the beginning. Another photo reveals his grandfather with a rare smile; summer drinks on the back patio. The orchard gleams in the background.

“He wanted to go off to war.” His mother answers his unasked question. “You know how your Grandfather feels about war.”

“Ah.”

She shifts uncomfortably. “I understood it. I didn’t like it, but I understood.” She sighs. “We wanted to be married before he left, but I was seventeen and had just accepted early admittance to Almaty University.

“So they asked me to wait. It seemed reasonable. They weren’t saying no; just saying later.”

Otabek turns the book page to reveal another photo. They’re parting; he can tell. He has a hundred photos with the same teary-eyed, red-cheeked expressions saved on his phone.

“So he went to war. I went to school. He managed to get leave around my birthday; I was eighteen and Papa surprisingly let me go in to the city as long as I was home by midnight.”

She smiles at the memory and uses the edge of her sleeve to wipe away fresh falling tears.

“I got caught trying to sneak in the back door at quarter to four in the morning.”

Otabek laughs; it’s low and genuine and another turn of the page reveals the very same night. In fact, half of Emma takes up her birthday, it’s full of strangers he doesn’t recognise but his mother is dancing with them and kissing their cheeks, bottles of cheap beer and ale in her hands.

“So Papa said that I was to stay home until he left again. He spent every night jumping the gate round the back of the graveyard to meet me in the orchard.

“Then he went back. And never came home.”

She falls silent and Otabek’s mouth runs dry.

After a while, after Otabek has finished flicking through the books of his mother’s life before him, Azaliya leans back on the bed.

“He would have loved you.” She says, and closes her eyes. Then; “I can’t wait to see him again.”

She’s asleep before he can respond.

\--

The next week feels like an illusion. It somehow flicks by quicker than his week with Yuri; but he feels as though he’s moving in slow motion.

He loses himself in the Austen-photobooks. He studies every freeze frame picture until each one is carefully and delicately burned in his mind. If he were a painter, he supposes, he could find every hue and draw every line with no reference.

Yuri messages almost constantly; desperate to gain his attention. Otabek is thankful for the distraction; especially when they come in the form of scantily clad snapchats at three in the morning.

He spends the week lost in stories; he earns another tale behind each photo in the form of ice chips and sneaked sweets. Azaliya tells him about the clubs she used to go to; and how much she loved to dance. She tells him about the bike rides with his father and the arguments she used to have with his grandparents.

A bag of sour gummy worms earns him his favourite story.

“We were laying in the meadow one night,” She says. “He told me that if I looked up at the stars at night, he’d be looking up at the same ones, no matter where we both were.

“I told him he was wrong; that’s not how constellations work.”

Otabek laughs. “That’s true, kind of a sad thought though.”

She grins. “Then he told me he loved me.”

Otabek grins back. After all these years, he can see how happy he had made her.

Yuri tells him stories, too. He tells him about the other skaters and their programmes. He tells him about his ballet practice and the all the shopping he’s doing. He tells him how much he misses him.

It leaves a strange feeling in his stomach that keeps him up at night, his thoughts always seem to linger back to Yuri. Those beautiful green eyes and rosebud lips could kill him.

 

\--

 

“Take me to the lime tree.” Azaliya demands the next morning.

Otabek has barely been awake twenty minutes when he knocks on her bedroom door. He scans the room; it’s looking more and more like a hospital with every passing day. A new machine has replaced the left-hand bedside table.

He’s taken aback by her sudden alertness; her health has rapidly declined in the weeks since he returned. But now, she is once again sat bolt upright in bed. Chatting feverently with one of the maids about what she’d like to wear today and which scarves would match which dress.

It’s an odd sight for him; she had always disliked the idea of having ‘staff’ to help them in their day to day lives. She had taught Otabek to fend for himself.

But she’s up. She’s talking. So he can’t find it in himself to care.

“The lime tree, huh?”

“Yes, it’s been a while since we went to it.” She smiles back at him.

He frowns. “Mama, can you walk that far?” His voice is quiet as he asks the question.

She seems hurt for a second, before switching back to a smile.

“It’s a long way. Maybe you can get the wheelchair for me after you’ve showered and dressed?”

She says the words with such a happy tone that he almost misses the most important one; _wheelchair._

 _When the fuck did that happen?_ He wonders.

He smiles back and nods, though. He can’t stop thinking about it the entire time he gets ready for the day.

He’s clicking the safety mechanism on the back of the wheelchair when he spots his Mother basically being carried down the stairs by a nurse and the stable boy; he has been summoned to carry her. But she refuses, insisting that she can do it alone.

He’s too numb to run up the stairs and help. Instead, he grips the wheelchair’s handles to tightly that the white of his knuckles gleams under the hall light.

She settles in to it with the help of the stable boy, then the nurse tucks a blanket around her legs despite the heat of the landing somewhere in the late 30s.

He stands there; stupidly, unable to do anything, as a maid ushers out from the kitchen with a picnic basket. She’s pre-planned the day. Otabek wonders how long for.

Azaliya takes the basket in to her lap, insisting that it’s not too heavy. Then she’s looking up at him, smiling.

“You ready?”

He remembers to breathe just in time. “Yeah.”

Doors are held open for them as he wheels her out on to the back path. His Grandmother, ever the perfectionist, has always ensured that the paving stones are evenly places and level. Azaliya had once criticised this, stating that; “They’re meant to be all jumbled and mismatched! That’s the point of them!” But she finds herself grateful for it now; it means the ride is smooth and steady.

Otabek struggles to make conversation on the path to the lime tree. It’s strange, for him. He has found that there are few people in life that he can easily talk to; his mother being one of them. Instead, he answers her questions monosyllabically.

Azaliya doesn’t falter though, and keeps asking them.

“How’s skating?”

“Good.”

“Got your routine sorted?”

“Yeah.”

“And your costumes?”

“Yup.”

“Okay, that’s good. How’s Yuri?”

“Fine.”

“Is his skating all sorted?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, _cool_.” She drags out the word and taps on the arm of the wheelchair. Desperate to get something more of her son.

“Told him you’re in love with him, yet?”

“N – Mama!” He chastises.

She can’t help but laugh. It’s been a thing between them for a number of years now; she knows her son far better than he thinks she does, and certainly far better than he knows himself.

He’d come home for Christmas the year he’d turned eighteen with a look on his face that she couldn’t seem to shake out of her mind even nearly five years later. She’d known straight away that there was _someone_.

Then, whenever he left his phone hanging about, about ten notifications popped through a minute. Yura, the name read. Next to the heart-eyes cat emoji. She couldn’t help but grin at it; and decided to use it in every text she sent him until he finally asked; “did you look at my phone?”

She had simply smiled and walked away humming a tune far too cheery for the blush on Otabek’s face.

It’s reminiscent of the blush he’s wearing now.

“I’m not in love with him.” He says after a while

“M’kay. If you say so.” She hums, he swears it’s the same tune from years ago.

He shakes his head and continues to push the wheelchair. They’re both quiet as they follow the path past the orchard and graveyard and over the brick river bridge.

“Beka? Why have we stopped?”

“The wheels can’t get over there, Mama.”

“Huh.” She stares out across the meadow. “Ah well, guess I’ll just have to walk then! Grab the picnic basket!”

Before he can answer or attempt to protest she shoves it to him and grips the arm of the chair. He can see the sheer strength it takes for her to get up from the way the veins in her wrists pop. The blanket falls, discarded, to the ground. Azaliya bats his hand away as he tries to help.

“I’m fine.” She insists. “You carry that. Oh – and grab the blanket, love? Then we can have something to sit on.”

He’s left barely breathing as the makes off down the meadow. She seems to become lighter with each step. She stands more upright. He strides become wider. He spends a moment watching her; letting his breathing ease back to normality before he finally snaps out of his stupor. He grabs the blanket and quickly catches up to her.

By the time he does, she’s already ascending the small hill to the tree. Bending over with an explained ease to soften the incline. She hobbles to its trunk; then leans against it, gasping and… laughing.

She’s laughing. He has absolutely no idea why when she somehow answers it.

“You’re out of breath!” She says between giggles.

“You’re meant to be one of the best figure skaters in the world! And you’re out of breath from a little jog!”

Her wheezing comes as a shock to him. She suddenly seems so alive and happy and wild and –

 _Fuck. My Mama is dying._ He realises for the first time.

Azaliya calms herself down and realises that Otabek is about to cry even before he does.

“No.” She says firmly. “Not yet, Otabek.”

She so rarely calls him that, that he forces himself to gulp and blink back the tears.

“No crying yet. I’m still here so you don’t get to _fucking_ cry, okay?” Her eyes begin to brim with tears too.

But then Otabek is so shocked to hear his mother swear that he finds the laughter he’d lost before. Then she is laughing again.

He tucks his sleeve behind his thumb and uses it to wipe away the unfallen tears.

Azaliya has taken the blanket from him, she lays it out on the dry summer grass.

“Sit.” She demands, patting the space beside her.

He listens, and reaches over to grab a bottle of water out of the picnic basket.

“Can you remember planting this?” She asks.

“Vaguely.” Otabek answers, and scrunches his nose trying to recall the memory. “Did I have a lisp?”

Azaliya laughs, it’s far too bright for someone so close to death. “You did.”

“You were lovely though especially at that age. Always so happy.”

Otabek smiles and pulls the picnic basket closer; they dig in to their lunch under the shade of the lime tree. Otabek pulls out Pride and Prejudice.

“Ah! My favourite!” Azaliya says as she moves to lean on his shoulder.

Eventually, he grows distracted by the sun and the dancing meadow flowers. She takes the book from him and becomes engrossed for the countless time in her life. They sit in an easy silence for what must be hours. She reads. He watches the meadow. The wind blows a soft breeze through the leaves.

“You’ll be okay.” She says. He looks away from the meadow to her.

She’s smiling, softer than she has done since he’s been here. It’s almost sad.

“Do you think this thing will ever actually grow a lime?” He says, tapping the trunk of the barren tree.

She laughs, her smile seems to brighten again.

Azaliya closes her book. “Maybe one day.” 

“Promise me you’ll keep skating?” The sudden change in the tone of her voice strikes him.

“Why would I stop?” Otabek’s voice shakes as he asks the question.

“Just promise me.”

“Okay, Mama.”

He doesn’t like the look on her face; nor does he like the uneasy weight that settles on his chest. He doesn’t speak about it though, and the comfortable silence falls between them again. They wait until the sun begins set before heading back to the manor. Azaliya’s footsteps are weak as she treks back across the meadow. The stars fall on their backs as Otabek pushes the wheelchair; heavy-handed and heavy-hearted.

 

* * *

 

 Otabek’s mother spends the next three days worsening by the hour. Otabek spends them wide awake; restless and numb all at once.

In the moments she is awake, she refuses to see him. So he has taken to sitting outside her bedroom door. He leans his back up against the wall; ignoring the never-ending stream of nurses and doctors and specialists brought in from the four corners of the globe. He reads instead. Distracts himself with novels he can’t seem to grasp and texts he can’t seem to reply to.

His grandmother complains that he clashes with the décor. But she doesn’t move him. His grandfather hands him coffee and cigarettes on the condition he doesn’t get caught smoking in the house.

His mother still refuses to see him.

He tries to peak in on nights like these; when the medical staff have deemed her stable enough to return to their homes without the risk of his grandmother’s wrath. His grandfather always seems to reach the door handle before him and sends him to bed with a stern ‘Goodnight.’

\--

2:37am.

He’s awake and unsure why as he blinks at the time on his smart watch. The eerie calm of the night is enough to rouse him from his warm bed.

It’s uncharacteristically cold for a late August night in Almaty. A shiver runs down his back and settles in his stomach.

The house is dark; it feels empty, imposing. A far juxtaposition from the bustling life the daytime brings to these walls. He hates it. Always has.

He pulls a woollen jumper over his head as he steps out in to the hall. The corridor is illuminated by nothing more than moonlight. He can here the beeps and whirrs from the machines in his mother’s room.

He pauses, and stares down toward the room. The door is cracked open; the steady flashing lights he’s grown so accustomed to are missing. The shiver returns and spreads up to his neck. He steps forward; slowly first, as if he already knows what he will find.

Then he is sprinting; knocking a China vase off its pedestal. The sound echoes around the house; disturbing its inhabitants and breathing life in to the early hours.

He’s already crying when he reaches the door. His hand grips the handle and he is shaking now. A familiar hand grasps his shoulder.

“Otabek.” Comes the gruff voice of his Grandfather, his tone is pleading; as if begging him not to open the door.

He does anyway.

The room is lifeless. So is his mother.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhhh, thank you for reading!
> 
> This is my NaNoWriMo piece for 2017. I'll be posting it as soon as I get round to editing each chapter.
> 
> A special thank you to everyone who has put up with my rambling over this and has read over it for me <3


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